Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future • Hacker News Board

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#121

Post by Certhas » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

cornyNetHandle wrote: post #112

ummjackson wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(author here) I agree! I was calling out Bitcoin's initial goals in the article but don't 100% align with them myself. Financial institutions came to exist for a reason and I'm really not on board with everyone "being their own bank" as I feel it'd be a step backwards from what we have today. What I do agree with is the need for more audit-able, accountable systems so the institutions we trust are less susceptible to…

What I never understood with the blockchain is the idea that it would change the politics of finance in favour of the little guy. As far as I can tell, financial institutions are exceedingly well practiced at co-opting new monetary systems, as they have been doing exactly that for a very long time, so I never thought that a new model of ledger was ever going to really faze them.

It should be a bonanza for them. Unregulated market. Every trade/contract they want.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#122

Post by ericb » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 6:32 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #40

sremani wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minting new coin is not difficult, there is CrptoNote project on Github you can fork and in matter of minutes you can have your own "Coin" and start mining on couple of old Linux boxes. I understand the network and traction, but this is not very different from each bank having its own currency notes back in the day (1800s?). The biggest problem is they are not stable enough to be currencies their volatility makes the…

I'd trust Doge more than most cryptocurrencies, honestly. It's relatively established, the community doesn't or at least didn't take itself too seriously (sounds like that may now have changed), and it took the (admittedly mostly symbolic) decision to allow "mining" to continue indefinitely, ensuring there will always be a Doge supply rather than passing all gains to the early adopters. In a sense it's a lot more fun…

It hasn't had an update in two years. What about when a vulnerability is discovered?

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#123

Post by UncleEntity » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

sethev wrote: post #68

andrewla wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sort of activity which led to the financial crisis would not be mitigated by the establishment of a decentralized currency. I can't speak for every ideological bitcoin supporter, but you and I may differ on what constituted the "crisis". I agree that it would not deal with the activity which led to the financial crisis. But to many, the crisis was not that the banks all failed, but that they were not allowed to…

To take the biggest example, AIG's owners did bear the consequences. Their equity was wiped out in the bailout. Do you believe individuals who did business with AIG are the ones who should have born the consequences for bad decisions made by the owners of AIG?

> Do you believe individuals who did business with AIG are the ones who should have born the consequences for bad decisions made by the owners of AIG?

The real question is why shouldn't they?

It all comes down to moral hazard and lack of due diligence really.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#124

Post by abakker » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #66

abakker wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please define what you mean by Centralized and Decentralized. I believe you and the OP are talking at cross purposes. the USD is decentralized in that P2P transactions are accepted with almost anyone in the world without needing a centralized intermediary.

Is it centralized in the sense that a single organism can exert more control than anyone else on the real value of the USD by printing more?

Kind of, though in some sense the value of a dollar is a matter of consensus, relative to the consensus value of other currencies and assets, as determined by exchanges. Modifying interest rate and money supply try to change the denominator, but value is technically preserved.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#125

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

Certhas wrote: post #121

cornyNetHandle wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I never understood with the blockchain is the idea that it would change the politics of finance in favour of the little guy. As far as I can tell, financial institutions are exceedingly well practiced at co-opting new monetary systems, as they have been doing exactly that for a very long time, so I never thought that a new model of ledger was ever going to really faze them.

It should be a bonanza for them. Unregulated market. Every trade/contract they want.

[deleted]

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#126

Post by andrewla » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

sethev wrote: post #68

andrewla wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sort of activity which led to the financial crisis would not be mitigated by the establishment of a decentralized currency. I can't speak for every ideological bitcoin supporter, but you and I may differ on what constituted the "crisis". I agree that it would not deal with the activity which led to the financial crisis. But to many, the crisis was not that the banks all failed, but that they were not allowed to…

To take the biggest example, AIG's owners did bear the consequences. Their equity was wiped out in the bailout. Do you believe individuals who did business with AIG are the ones who should have born the consequences for bad decisions made by the owners of AIG?

Well, first of all, yes, 100% certainly -- if you try to buy insurance for uninsurable things, then you are taking a risk, and risks can have downsides.

And as for bearing the consequences, we simply do not have the capacity within the rule of law to make them bear the consequences. The people who made the decisions were extremely well compensated even outside of equity up until the moment when the house of cards came crashing down, and those people have now moved on to equally lucrative jobs -- hell, they can probably put on their resume that they managed to convince the government to give them billions of dollars to cover their asses, which is more than anyone else gets when their bad decisions come home to roost.

Without the bailouts there would at least be grounds to sue the individuals who created the situation when things unwound, because there would have been consequences.

I'm getting a little up in arms here because nothing triggers me more than the idea that macroeconomics is a science -- all the actions around the bailouts, and this narrative of "economic collapse" and "too big to fail" -- the same people who disastrously failed to predict the future before we're now trusting to predict the future. Einstein said in response to the fact that hundreds of scientists thought his theory was wrong by saying "if I were wrong, one would be enough". In economics, nobody would even consider their models to be incorrect, no matter how much they have been falsified.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#127

Post by Blackthorn » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

IronKettle wrote: post #102

aardvark291 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bob is out $1000 until he finds a "greater fool". The zero-sum aspect occurs if at some point all participants cash out.

This argument is also true of any equity that doesn't pay out dividends. Most people wouldn't consider the stock market to be a zero-sum game. Maybe in the ultimate long-term, but not within a time frame that's meaningful for anyone.

No, it isn't. Dividends are only one way for stocks to return value. There are also buybacks and mergers.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#128

Post by ska » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

trevelyan wrote: post #81

meri_dian wrote: post #2

>"To deliver a peer-to-peer alternative to cash that, through decentralization, did away with the need for trust in financial institutions, which the 2008 crisis showed to be unscrupulous, and often corrupt." The sort of activity which led to the financial crisis would not be mitigated by the establishment of a decentralized currency. Decentralization would not do away with the need for financial institutions (or the…

> The sort of activity which led to the financial crisis would not be mitigated by the establishment of a decentralized currency. It actually would deal with the issue that led to the GFC. Remember --- the problem wasn't that there were fraudulent mortgages -- it is that these mortgages were packaged and repackaged in ways that deliberately obscured the risk involved so that people were buying stuff that had no under…

   It actually would deal with the issue that led to the GFC.

It really wouldn't. The decisions that led to this were made by people who had access to all the data they needed to achieve better understanding, but that didn't help.

The idea that it would become trivial to distinguish between good and bad investments seems to me to be incredibly naive.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#129

Post by ericb » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

dahdum wrote: post #72

simias wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speculation is worthless because unlike bitcoin it seems to be infinite supply. Tell me that you're able to predict what the cryptocurrency scene will look like 1 year from now and I'll call you a fool. Your thought process to reach that conclusion might prove more insightful however. So far it seems that cryptocurrencies move alongside each other for the most part, when the big ones go up the smaller follow. If you…

They rise and fall mostly with Bitcoin, Ethereum has shown recently to be more independent, but the biggest drops are usually spurred by panic about crypto regulation. Regarding 2018, I'm your fool...here are my predictions: Bitcoin will remain top market cap and crypto numeraire. Majority of the newest projects like IOTA, Tron, etc. will be down significantly. Burned by vaporware projects, investors will become more…

I want to play too!

Here's my prediction:

Ethereum and Monero continue to grow in market cap as they work and nail a niche very well.

Bitcoin core starts to decline in about 3 months as volumes on Bitcoin Cash grow. Lightning doesn't pan out because it has strong centralizing forces so it is no better than fiat, and it will still have higher fees than Bitcoin Cash because it adds use, rather than limits it, which further increases demand, and therefore fees.

Bitcoin Cash grows as it takes the mantle from Bitcoin Core. The market hasn't noticed that real innovation and development is taking place on this chain yet. It has adoption coming in from business that depended on the cash use-case and built for bitcoin core. Bitcoin cash also has features coming that were planned for a low-fee environment, like colored coins.

The success of Bitcoin Cash over bitcoin is an inevitable consequence as the public will prefer a store of value they can transact to one that can't be moved. If you make 20 transactions with $400 in Bitcoin Core, because of fees, it is gone! There will be more forks, but none will gather critical mass.

One or two of the newer crypto speculations delivers and succeeds. The others do not. Most of the DAG cryptos are dependent on "goodwill among men", vs. relying on greed, so if they take the spotlight, they will fall to attacks.

Re: Dogecoin's inventor looks to the past for insight into the future

#130

Post by IronKettle » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

Blackthorn wrote: post #127

IronKettle wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is also true of any equity that doesn't pay out dividends. Most people wouldn't consider the stock market to be a zero-sum game. Maybe in the ultimate long-term, but not within a time frame that's meaningful for anyone.

No, it isn't. Dividends are only one way for stocks to return value. There are also buybacks and mergers.

Er, buybacks and mergers both involve a "greater fool" (either the company itself or the acquiring company).